Rural communities are declining in population and employment opportunities are low as cities rush. In the wake of this decline, Zinni’s poverty alleviation policies have become a nationwide focus.
Xinhua quoted an expert in its announcement as saying it had “eliminated the millennium-old issue of extreme poverty”.
But, despite what appears to be a major achievement, there is some confusion in the state-run media and among experts as to whether poverty in China will end in this regard.
Speaking at his daily news conference on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said China has “achieved its goal of achieving comprehensive poverty alleviation by the end of 2020.” “The hard-won results are encouraging,” he said.
But others have been more cautious. The government-run tabloid Global Times quoted experts as saying that the Chinese government needed to conduct a “detailed review” of poverty alleviation results, and would announce the results in the first half of 2021.
According to Xinhua, Xia said there would be a need for “random inspections” and “censuses” first and then once all standards were met, it would be the responsibility of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to declare that “there is a fight against poverty.” Has won. “
National division
Whether this goal has been officially met or not, experts said, the Chinese government will announce in months that it has achieved its goal of ending total poverty by the end of 2020.
Poverty experts around the world have praised China’s work in ending deprivation in the country, criticizing both Beijing’s goals and its methods of reaching them.
This division is not only between rural and urban centers but also in those cities. Large population centers such as Beijing and Shanghai, mainly along the east coast, have seen rapid increases in wealth and living standards, lagging behind many second- and third-tier cities.
Experts are also divided on how individual measures to combat poverty in China’s poorer areas have been successful on the ground.
Matthew Marchisio, China’s country director at the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), said in his time working on land in poor communities, he had seen government agencies laying new roads and infrastructure to provide electricity to rural villages and clean water.
Given the sheer size of China, many rural communities have rapidly been modernized in large parts of the country, but have been cut off from basic amenities and transport links for decades.
“There may be questions as to whether or not the poverty line was too low … (but) I believe the key message for the rest of the world is to end poverty, to move people away from poverty,” Marchisio said. . “It’s really a message of hope.”
Poverty expert and associate professor John Donaldson said, “I was in a poor village in late 2019 and what I saw was … some things that were going great and other things that were full of disasters, nothing worse than that, “The University of Singapore Management,” said John Donaldson.
Poverty alleviation completed?
With a lot of time and money invested in the poverty alleviation campaign – not to mention Zin’s personal political capital – experts said the delayed announcement indicates that Beijing wants to ensure everything before going public.
With the silence and silence of the top Communist Party leadership in the party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily, it seems that other media in the state may have rocked the gun.
But despite the confusion in the state media, it seems that it is only a matter of time before it is announced that poverty alleviation has been successful.
Marchisio said he has heard of official fiduciary missions going into the field to “validate the statements of local governments”, and he expects Beijing to wait to see his reports before saying that poverty alleviation is successful.
But Xi and his government have not outlined exactly how much they intend to maintain momentum after the end of the poverty alleviation campaign or move forward with successes so far.
Marchisio said that after the Chinese government stopped investing large sums of public money in rural areas, Beijing must first ensure that its poverty alleviation success is maintained.
He said there are still millions of people in China who were at risk of returning to absolute poverty. “What has been achieved is just one step in the long process of development and the journey is far away,” he said.
Poverty expert Donald said he hoped the Chinese government would now raise the level of poverty and announce a goal to increase the livelihoods of its people – but the political message of “ending poverty” made it difficult.
“I think the unfortunate thing about all this is that it is deviating from China’s real achievements in many ways,” he said.
“People are looking at the goal and the deadline and asking if it will go away and the answer is almost certainly no. But will all this distract from the real achievements made by China?”
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